How Much Can You Earn from Blogging? (How to Calculate Blog Earnings)
Making money on your own can be challenging, especially if you want to pursue a passion or build a business out of a hobby or something you love.
Blogging is a great way to make money from your passion, and there are plenty of examples of bloggers who have made millions by writing about things they are passionate about.
But how much can your blog earn, and how long would it take you to get there?
In this article, I will show you how you can calculate that.
This can help you to devise your income strategy and estimate how much work you will need to put in to reach your desired income. It will also motivate you when everything seems to be moving slowly.
So, what will I cover in this article? I will show you:
- How to calculate your potential blogging income as a beginner.
- How you can make a million dollars from blogging in 3 years (with calculations).
- A real-life case study of a million-dollar blog.
- How top bloggers make millions from blogging.
As you will see, blogging can make a great investment, and it is definitely worth trying out.
If you want to start a blog but are unsure of where to begin, you can check out my guide on how to start a blog the right way.
You can start a blog in less than 30 minutes, even if you are not a techy person. And it can cost you less than $50 a year if you go with a hosting company like ChemiCloud.
For now, let’s dive into how to calculate blog earnings.
1. Information You Need To Calculate Your Potential Blog Earnings
Before you calculate your potential blog earnings, you need to figure out some information.
You need to estimate:
- How many visitors each blog post can potentially bring.
- Your potential RPM (revenue per 1,000 visitors).
- How long it takes you to write a blog post.
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#1. Number of Visitors Per Blog Post
You need to figure out how many visitors each blog post can bring to your blog.
When you start blogging, your SEO and promotion skills will be low, so each post will probably not bring in much.
You can reasonably expect anywhere between 100 and 400 visitors per post. An average of 300 visitors per post is quite achievable if you take the time to learn about SEO.
As your SEO and promotion skills increase, you can expect to get more visitors per post.
#2. RPM
RPM stands for Revenue Per Mille. It is an estimate of revenue per 1,000 visitors.
It is calculated as follows:
RPM = Total Income/ (Total visitors/1,000)
For example, if your blog earned $2,000 from 100,000 visitors, your RPM is $20.
RPM= $2,000/ (100,000/1,000)
As a beginner blogger, you can make an RPM of between $10 and $30.
An RPM of $25 ($15 from display ads and $10 from affiliate marketing) is quite achievable.
#3. Time to Write a Post
You need to figure out how long you take to write a blog post.
The more blog posts you can write, the more traffic you can get and the more money you can earn.
Aim to write for at least 1 or 2 hours every day. If you do this, you can write two decent posts per week. This translates to 8 posts per month and 100 per year.
In three years, you can have at least 300 posts.
You can speed up your writing by using an AI writer like Writesonic.
2. How Much Can You Realistically Earn From Blogging? (Let’s Calculate)
Once you have estimates of these three metrics, you can easily estimate how much you can potentially make from blogging.
You can use the following formula to calculate your potential blogging income:
Total Income= (Total Number of Visitors/1,000)* RPM (revenue per 1,000 visitors)
Where, Total Number of Visitors= Number of posts * Visitors per post
For example, if you write 350 posts and each post brings in an average of 300 visitors at an RPM of $25, you can make a monthly income of $2,625.
Total income= ((350*300)/1,000)*$25
How realistic is this?
Making $2,500 a month is a reasonable goal to aim at with blogging. Looking at blogger surveys, roughly 15% of bloggers make over $2,500 a month ($30,000+ a year) from blogging.
Even if you are an average blogger, it can take you about 3 to 4 years to make this income.
This is assuming that:
- You are writing two posts a week.
- You are getting an average of 300 visitors per post.
- You are getting an RPM of $25 ($15 from display ads and $10 from affiliate marketing)
These metrics are quite achievable, even for a beginner.
Below is a table summarizing the progression of how much you can earn and how many posts you need to write
| Number of Posts | Time to Write | Total Visitors | Total Income | Site Valuation (at 35X) |
| 30 | 4 months | 9,000 | $225 | $7,875 |
| 60 | 8 months | 18,000 | $450 | $15,750 |
| 120 | 15 months (1.3 years) | 36,000 | $900 | $31,500 |
| 240 | 30 months (2.5 years) | 72,000 | $1,800 | $63,000 |
| 360 | 45 months (3.8 years) | 108,000 | $2,700 | $94,500 |
* Metrics estimates used: 300 visitors/post, 2 posts per week, and $25 RPM.
I have also included a site valuation (at 35X the monthly income) to show you how much your blog will be worth should you want to sell it.
It is worth noting that many new bloggers will fail because they go into blogging without the proper knowledge and end up making avoidable mistakes.
I have written a detailed article that goes through all you need for success in blogging as a new blogger. For more, see my article on the best blogging advice for beginner bloggers.
3. How to Become a Millionaire from Blogging in 3 Years (Let’s Calculate)
If you want to be a millionaire from blogging, you can do it in three years, but you have to be more strategic in how you approach blogging.
There are plenty of examples of bloggers who have built million-dollar blogs in less than three years, and in this section, I will show you one way you can do it.
So how do you make a million dollars from blogging in less than three years?
The easiest way to become a millionaire from blogging is to build your blog and sell it.
Typically, you can sell your blog for 30-40 times the monthly average income for the last 12 months.
There are plenty of places where you can sell your blog. Some of the most popular marketplaces include Motion Invest, Empire Flippers, and Flippa.
Assuming you need to sell your blog for a million dollars, you need to be earning a net income of at least $30,000 a month for at least 12 months (at 35X valuation).
$30,000* 35= $1,050,000.
But how easy is it to make $30,000 a month from blogging in three years? Let’s calculate.
- If you write three high-quality blog posts every week, you will have 450 blog posts in 3 years (3 posts * 150 weeks).
- If each blog post brings in an average of 1,000 visitors a month, then you will have 450,000 visitors a month coming to your blog.
- If you have an RPM of $70 ($20 from Ads, $25 from affiliate marketing, and $25 from products), you will earn $31,500 a month.
Congratulations, you are a blogging millionaire!
4. Real-Life Case Study of a Million Dollar Blog (Abby Organizes)
This looks good in theory, but is there proof in real life?
There are plenty of real-life examples (see highest-earning bloggers), but for this article, I will focus on a case study from Abby Lawson’s blog (Abby Organizes/Just a Girl and Her Blog).
Just a Girl and Her Blog is a lifestyle blog that deals mainly with organizing and DIY projects. Abby Lawson started the blog in 2013 as a creative outlet. At that time, she was a stay-at-home mom to two boys.
Two years later (in 2015), the blog was doing well enough to enable her husband, Donnie, to quit his job and join her in blogging.
By November 2016, after about 3 years and 9 months of blogging, she had grown her blog into a million-dollar blog with a monthly income of over $30,000.
Abby has published detailed income reports that track her progress over the years. These reports can give us insights into how she grew a million-dollar blog.
#1. Quick Stats
Here are some quick stats for justagirlandherblog.com
- Gross Monthly Income: $40,124 (from November 2016 Income Report)
- Net Monthly Income: $34,134
- Number of Visitors: 420,000 (estimate from graph)
- RPM: $95.5 (based on gross income).
- Site Valuation: $1,194,865 (at 35X valuation of net monthly income)
- Age of the Blog: 3 years, 9 months (at the time of the income report)
- Monetization: Affiliate marketing (58%) and selling digital products (42%).
#2. Abby Lawson’s Income
Abby made a gross income of $40,124 in November 2016. She had expenses totaling $5,985. This gives a net income of $34,139.
#3. How Abby Lawson’s Blog Makes Money
Abby made her money from:
- Affiliate Income: $23,297 (58% of Total Gross Income)
- Product Income: $16,827 (42% of Total Gross Income)
The RPM of her blog was $95.5. Affiliate income RPM was $55.5, and product income RPM was $40.
Hopefully, Abby’s story has been inspiring and has shown you that it is possible to become a millionaire from blogging.
5. How Do Bloggers Make Millions? How to Increase Your Blog Income
Becoming a millionaire from blogging is no easy task and it takes time and hard work.
After poring through hundreds of income reports from successful bloggers, there are certain patterns that I have noticed.
In this section, I want to discuss strategies that top bloggers use to build successful blogs.
Hopefully, these strategies will help you to increase your blog income and help build a million-dollar blog.
If you want to increase your blog income, there are three main levers that you can pull. You can:
- Write more articles.
- Get more visitors to your blog.
- Increase your RPM.
If you can do this successfully, then you will significantly increase your chances of building a successful blog.
Let’s look at these in detail.
1. Write More Articles
The more high-quality articles you write, the more visitors you will get.
Inexperienced bloggers write a few articles and then give up when they don’t see much traffic. Experienced bloggers write hundreds or even thousands of articles.
Experienced bloggers can write blog posts every day or every other day. This means they can write 300 blog posts every year and almost 1,000 blog posts in three years.
Aim to have at least 450 blog posts in 3 years. To do this, you need to crank out at least three high-quality articles a week.
It can be difficult to consistently write articles especially if you are working a full-time job, are a slow writer or if English is not your first language.
But there are a few strategies that you can use to write articles faster, for example:
#1. Writing about what you know or enjoy
If you write about what you are passionate about, or what you know well, you can write faster because you don’t need to do much research. Also, you will be motivated to keep writing because you will not get bored.
#2. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI writers have become quite good at writing articles, especially with the release of GPT4 and Chat GPT. You can produce a great first draft in less than 10 minutes. You can then edit this first draft to make it your own and avoid AI detectors.
A good AI writer you can try is Writesonic. It is highly rated on Trustpilot (4.8/5) and is more affordable than many other AI writers. Their paid plan cost about $13 a month for 60,000 words (check the current price). With this plan, you can write 30 blog posts that are 2,000 words long every month.
If you want to test how the AI works, Writesonic have a free plan you can play around with (you don’t need your credit card).
#3. Hiring Writers
If you have some money you can invest, you can hire writers in places like Fiverr, Upwork, or Freelancer. If you don’t have money to hire writers, you can team up with friends or family and split the profits.
You need to be careful when hiring writers because some might give you plagiarized content or AI content.
2. Get More Visitors to Your Blog
Top bloggers are good at getting visitors to their blogs. When you get a high number of visitors, it is easier to get accepted to premium ad networks, and you can negotiate good affiliate commissions and sponsorships with companies.
To increase your chances of making a million from blogging, aim to build your blog’s traffic to 400,000 visitors.
Writing great articles is the first step, but there are other important things you should do.
You can get more visitors by:
#1. Ensuring that your blog is fast and secure
This is a critical first step to increasing the number of visitors. If your blog is slow and insecure, everything else will be useless, because your new visitors will bounce off.
You need to:
- Get good hosting. A bad hosting company can mess you up big time. I recommend using ChemiCloud if you are a new blogger. They have a 4.9/5 star rating on Trustpilot and offer great discounts. See how to start a blog using ChemiCloud.
- Get a good theme. You need a fast and lightweight WordPress theme that will not bog down your site. One of the best themes is GeneratePress theme.
- Use an optimization plugin. Optimization plugins help to speed up your site in various ways. A good plugin to use is WP Rocket.
You can check my article on the most essential plugins for a new blog.
#2. Learning about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Good SEO techniques will help you to get visitors from search engines like Google. Google is the biggest referrer of traffic to blogs.
Here are some quick SEO tips.
- Use a keyword tool. A keyword tool will tell you how many people are searching for your target keyword and how competitive that keyword is. You can use a tool like KW Finder.
- Build Your EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). Google wants to send visitors to reputable sites with articles written by experts. You can build EAT by writing good quality content and building topical authority.
- Build Links. You can build links to your articles through guest posting, getting interviewed on podcasts, or helping out a reporter on HARO.
#3. Building an Email List
Over 70% of your visitors will leave and never come back again. Signing them up to an email list ensures you can inform them whenever you write new posts.
Also, you can recommend products and services to people on your list and make extra money.
To get started with an email list, you can use a service like Systeme.io. They have a free tier where you can send unlimited emails to 2,000 customers (no credit card required). Check out Systeme.io features here.
3. Increase Your RPM
Your RPM represents how much money you can make from a thousand visitors to your site.
An RPM of $70 is a good target to aim for. The higher the RPM you can achieve, the less traffic you need to make a million from blogging.
Top bloggers have RPMs of $50 to $100.
To get high RPMs, you need to:
#1. Join a premium Ad network
Most bloggers tend to start with Google Adsense when monetizing their blogs.
However, Ad Sense earnings tend to be pretty low. You can double or triple your income from display ads by joining a premium Ad network like Ezoic, Mediavine, or Ad Thrive.
In addition to giving higher returns, premium ad networks also offer all kinds of support.
Unfortunately, many premium networks have high traffic thresholds. For example, Mediavine requires that you have 50,000 visitors, and Ad Thrive requires 100,000 visitors.
Your best bet as a beginner would be to go with Ezoic since they have no minimum traffic threshold. They also offer support, speed optimization technology, and many other features. You can see how to join Ezoic here.
#2. Sell products
Selling products, especially courses, can be highly lucrative.
When you look at top bloggers earning over a million dollars a year, you will find that one of their main sources of income will be online courses.
These bloggers can charge between $1,000 and $3,000 per course. At this price point, you need less than 1,000 students a year to make a million dollars.
Selling high-ticket courses is not easy. But if you are in the right niche (such as personal finance or online marketing), this is achievable.
You can use a platform like Payhip to host and deliver your courses at a reasonable price (See Payhip pricing).
If you are just starting out, however, you can get your feet wet by selling low-ticket ($20-$50) digital products. You can also use Payhip to do this.
Bloggers like Sarah Titus (see top-earning bloggers) have made millions by selling low-ticket items like ebooks, planners, charts, and other printables.
#3. Get into affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing can also be lucrative if you promote high-ticket items or products with recurring commissions.
Software products, especially in the finance, online marketing, or dating niches tend to have high commissions. Luxury products such as watches, jewelry, and real estate can also pay well.
Wrapping Up
Hopefully, this article has given you a framework that you can use to make a full-time income from blogging or even build a million-dollar blog.
Spending three years writing about things you enjoy and making a million from it doesn’t sound like a bad deal. Especially for something you started for less than $50.
You will be hard-pressed to find any other investment that can yield such results for so little money put in.
Starting a blog is not difficult. You can do it in less than 30 minutes, even if you are not a techy person. The steps you need to take are:
1. Identify your niche. This is what you want to write about.
2. Get a domain name and hosting. Use a reliable hosting company like ChemiCloud for this.
3. Install WordPress and WordPress plugins. WordPress is the best blogging platform for bloggers.
4. Design your site. A theme like GeneratePress will makes this process a breeze.
If you want a step-by-step guide on how to do this, check out my beginner’s guide on how to start a blog the right way.
Further reading
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